Today the April Housing Starts report and Housing Permits report were released at 8:30 am (EST). On first view of the headline news, it appeared relatively negative as the market was seeking an increase in both reports. Instead both reports announced negative statistics and actually reached record levels of the last 50 years of data.

The construction of homes and apartments fell by 12.8% in April to a seasonally adjusted rate of 458,000. However when looking at the various components of the report, it showed that while apartment and condo (multi-family) construction was down, the construction of single family homes actually increased 2.8% or 368,000

The Housing Permit report showed applications for new housing dropped to 3.3% or 494,000. Once again single family housing actually reported an increase of applications to 3.6% to 373,000.

Keep in mind the multi-family reports tend to be volatile from month to month. When you parse the data, it may be showing one more data point of a stabilizing economy.

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